James Franco: Oscar Host/Actor/Screenwriter/Director

James Franco is determined to be one of Hollywood’s most versatile hyphenates.

The soon-to-be Oscar host is reportedly in talks to take on two directorial projects: an adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying for Fox Searchlight, and one of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian with super-producer Scott Rudin. Both films would be based on scripts that Franco wrote himself. Though he does have some directing experience ‚Äî he just finished shooting The Broken Tower, about the poet Hart Crane ‚Äî taking on two of the great novels of the twentieth century is remarkably ambitious, even for the endlessly ambitious Franco. (Vulture)

Are there directors I might rather hope would tackle Blood Meridian? Maybe. But others who once said they would are all booked up directing the Monopoly board game movie and whatnot.